Modelo de maturidade em ecodesign: um framework para apoiar as empresas na seleção e implementação de práticas de ecodesign

Over the last few decades, ecodesign has emerged as a promising approach to integrate environmental concerns into the product development process in order to minimize environmental impacts throughout the products material life cycle, without compromising other essential criteria such as performance and cost. Despite the recognition of the ecodesign potential benefits, its application has not reached companies worldwide mainly due to difficulties in the management of ecodesign, which include: lack of systematization of ecodesign practices; lack of integration into the product development process, management and corporate strategy; and lack of a method to support the selection of the most suitable ecodesign practices to be applied. This thesis introduces the Ecodesign Maturity Model (EcoM2), a framework aimed at supporting companies in the ecodesign implementation and management. The EcoM2 was developed in the context of the hypothetic-deductive approach combining the theoretical and empirical developments. Initially, a theoretical approach is adopted in order to have a deep knowledge and understanding about the issue, define the main elements of the model and elaborate the content of the theoretical version. The main research method adopted in this phase is the systematic literature review combined with experts evaluation, in order to improve the theoretical version. Subsequently, the improved version of the EcoM2 is further developed following an empirical approach, with the application of the EcoM2 in an action research. Finally, in order test hypothesis of the research, i.e. that the EcoM2 can support companies in the selection of ecodesign practices to be applied into the product development process, two case studies for theory-testing are carried out. The results indicate that the EcoM2 can successfully support companies in the selection of the most suitable ecodesign practices to be applied, based on the current maturity profile of the company on ecodesign implementation and its strategic goals and drivers.